Tis the Season

Board/Staff Christmas Celebration 

The Board of Trustees will soon be inviting you to a Christmas celebration at the high school. This is planned for Wednesday, December 12 @ 3:45. It should last for about 45 minutes or so. Please put this on your calendar as they desire to both wish you a Merry Christmas and offer their gratitude to you for the work you pour into this calling which makes Holland Christian an ever-growing, loving place for children to grow and know Christ's love.

FS Discovery Night

Forest School will be hosting its Discovery Night on January 17 6:00-7:00. Please mark your calendar, Ron and Rhea.

SS Discovery Night

South Side will be hosting its Discovery Night on January 29, 6:00-7:30. Please mark your calendars, everybody except Ron and Rhea.

Kids Food Basket

Would you please copy and paste this in your blogs? 

Christmas is a time to love our neighbor. While certainly we are called upon to love our neighbor all throughout the year, Christmas is a time we want to be very intentional about where our focus lies. Consumerism gets packaged up in such pretty bows, it can be a challenge for adults as well as children. While we will be holding classroom Christmas parties, we also want to hold another kind of party this year. A giving party. There are children in our city who will go home during the two weeks of Christmas break with little to no food to eat. Their school-supplied meals will be inaccessible and they will face hunger. God calls on us every day to share our gifts so that others will see and feel God through our actions. In answer to that call, we are going to move into action.

This year we are once again going to partner with Kids Food Basket. Following their guidelines, we will be able to provide suppers for children to eat during the two weeks they have off of school during Christmas break. Kids Food Basket helps to feed 500+ children in the city of Holland. We will assemble a healthy trail mix for these friends of ours and we will decorate their brown bags. On Wednesday, December 19, all of our students will get busy packing trail mix, decorating bags and loading up food supplies.

Would you be willing to help bring this to life with your child at home? If you would like your child to participate in donating food items, would you invite your child to select which items he/she would like to donate from this wish list? Our children understand the discomfort of hunger pangs. Many of our children don't understand the fear that those hunger pangs might not be satiated. Please talk about God's call on us to serve our neighbors and help provide hope by filling hungry little tummies.

Items we would like to collect:

• Boxes of Cheerios

• Bulk Pretzels

• Bulk Cheez-It crackers or Goldfish crackers

• Bags of raisins

• Snack Sized Zipper-lock bags

• Brown Lunch Bags

SHOUTING IT SOME MORE!

Bob JUST shared the results of the CT scan which show there is NO METASTASIZED DISEASE! That 51% we were praying over?!?! The prayers we've been pacing about in the throne room of heaven uttering and pleading with tears in our eyes? It IS God's will that this cancer IS contained just to the prostate. Remember those statistics? In the hundred's place (to speak elementary vernacular) Let's remain on our knees....or scream and jump in the hallways of South Side. OUR GOD IS A GOOD GOOD GOD! GOD IS GOOD! ALL THE TIME! ALL THE TIME! GOD IS GOOD! 

Praise and thanksgiving let everyone sing! May you EACH have a blessed, joy-filled weekend! Know that, which there is still work and recovery to do, Bob and Karen are blessed with reasons to smile this weekend and that truth makes our hearts SING! 

Kindergarten Offerings

(Please honor: For your eyes only until we make public announcements through Courtney and Admin.)

I want to share with you what Rod and I shared with our whole indoor, English speaking (in other words, not forest or immersion) Kindergarten team yesterday after school. As an admin team we have been talking and examining for a few years the sustainability, and budgetability of our current 3-day and 5-day Kindergarten offerings. We love offering our parents the option of something other than all day, every day for the English-speaking students, but the volatility of enrollment numbers from year to year can make 3-day K a tricky option to carry out depending on the numbers that, again, vary on both sides of town from year to year.

Consequently, beginning next year, we are going to offer a 5-day all day option, like we currently do, and a 5-day half-day option. ZCS has been doing this quite successfully since the State mandated 5 full-day K for all students in public schools. We will support our team in collaborating, creating and carrying out these 2 options at Rose Park and South Side for next year. There are more questions you may have, and if so, I invite you to please stop in for a conversation with me.

And, once again, it will be so helpful to the process of rolling this out if we can keep this news internal to ourselves only for now so that we can roll it out to our community with all of the necessary context, fanfare, and information possible when we do that. We have some work to do before that happens, hence the request for keeping this news in house for now. 

College Student Observer

I was contacted by a student from Moody Bible College who would like to observe elementary students in action over her Christmas break. If you would NOT like to have her stop in your room on the 17th of December, please let me know. Otherwise, you'll see Emma floating in and out of classrooms on Monday the 17th. Thank you. 

Preschool Staff Meeting

Will take place at South Side on Wednesday the 28th.

Gift Exchange

Per our conversation at the staff meeting, the following text was placed in the parent blog this weekend:

As Christmas time approaches, we as a staff discuss how to keep our students’ eyes focused on Jesus. Especially in the area of giving, we hope to help your children enjoy the act of giving even more than receiving. Throughout the year with our SPARK service program, our students are supporting various community members and ministries through prayer, visits, collections, and making cards and pictures for members of our armed forces and their families. As there is no specific SPARK collection going on in December, watch for details coming soon about how we as an entire South Side school community will show our love for Jesus and his coming. All of these are so important to open young lives to the needs and opportunities to meet some of those needs as members of the Kingdom of God.

With the overall focus on giving, the staff has thoughtfully considered how to celebrate the Christmas season for students in grades K-2nd. In response to the urging of parents, and with the careful consideration of the staff, we would like to again celebrate with each other in our classrooms in the following way: Instead of each student coming with enough little things (stickers, eraser, piece of candy, etc.) for each student in the class, we would ask that each boy come with one wrapped “boy” gift, and each girl come with one wrapped “girl” gift. These will be used as part of games and activities on the last day before vacation. Please limit the value of these gifts to $3 only. Even though you may be able to find a great deal on a higher priced item for only $3, it helps us avoid some difficulty if the value of each item is actually $3.

Please see your child’s teacher if you have any questions. Thank you for helping us make the student gift exchange a fair, fun, and meaningful experience for everyone!

Come and See....Go and Tell

I suspect we've all been blessed with moments, often all too fleeting, that steal our breath and we're left praying for just another moment longer. I'm talking about times in life when the veil between this world and the next thins such that we can almost see and feel a taste of Glory. A beauty we can't comprehend with our minds but are gifted to experience with our hearts a mere sparkle or shadow of the very hand of God's hand. A profoundness and majesty that escape our ability to put adequately into words in order to share the feeling in its entirety with another. A stirring of the soul. In those blessed, tantalizing moments, you realize that God has just passed by. Closely. 

Yesterday I visited Dirk who is once again subjected to more days and nights in the hospital. As I drove to Grand Rapids, I anticipated entering into a hellhole with him. I don't use that word lightly. I do mean, for Dirk, a hospital room, I thought, represents a backwards slide, loss of progress, stepping away from healing and back into more needles, beeps, medications, unanswered questions and fear. Hell. In a hole of a room. Stinkin' 5C again. You know what? As God does sometimes, quite the opposite occurred. I was invited instead to come and see, for a moment, the very presence of God and I guess I'm writing it here to you guys because I want to go and tell. Through Dirk's words and in his eyes and smile, I saw God's presence radiating brightly and I need to go and tell (thanks for listening, guys)

Is Dirk well? No. Not his definition of well. Not physically. He has to eat like it's his job. He's on extreme medications inflicting side effects that would break the average person's resolve. His cells and very body are at civil war with each other. He is not currently blessed with a body that functions well enough to allow him to take up his place that he has enjoyed for years, this calling he is and remains so deeply invested in. 

Instead of remaining in the painful loss of that reality for now, Dirk has chosen to go about working to learn about and take up a new calling. He is serving God in mighty ways. He is choosing to seek God's wisdom in the midst of chaos. He is reading, talking, thinking, praying and being really honest. Honest with God, honest with people and honest with himself. In that honesty and while placing the dreams of his former self in a heap of ashes for now at the Father's throne, Dirk has experienced a very raw, nearly inexplicable peace. Frankly, this peace is a bit out of character for the scrappy fighter that he is. But he is enjoying and a bit mystified by a blessed new and profound peace. His body is still raging on and that fight makes its way up to his head (and out of his mouth) from time to time. It needs to. But his soul has been blessed with profound peace. What else is that except the hand of God blessing our brother with a new calling for now and peace in that space? I know I speak confidently for all of us when I say that we'll certainly continue to pray this man to wholeness and get back to his former calling. But these days he's spending living in the desert he has seen and known a closeness to God's heart that has reshaped him in an everlasting way. It is a marvel to behold. It stirs my soul. 

Maybe that same story of hope can translate to our own lives, our classrooms and our stories. Sometimes we find ourselves in messes and in the midst of chaos which feels confusing and frustrating. Perhaps there's hope we can find for ourselves in Dirk's story and the lessons he's trying so hard to choose to live out. We are servants of the King. He rushes to chaos and transforms messes into his beauty in his time. Thank you for listening to all of this. I pray each of you will be blessed by rest and joy this weekend. Please know that all you do here at South Side, you do so well and it's clear that you serve with your heart! May you bless in unique ways this weekend and also be blessed in unique ways! 

Chapel

Wednesday the 14th at our typical time. 

K-2 Staff Meeting

Thursday the 15th over the lunch hour

PK Staff Meeting

November 28 over the lunch hour at South Side please

Parent Team Christmas Tea

Thursday, December 20 will be our annual Christmas Tea gifted to us from the parent team. They have asked that you send the message to your classroom parents requesting lunch coverage.

A Brief Touchpoint

My Evaluation
We've crossed the line into quarter two. You've completed GOBS of evaluations of your students. I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask you to complete one more? I value your input into all that takes place at South Side. It takes a team to do what we do for our students and families. It would mean a GREAT deal to me if you would be willing to anonymously offer some feedback about my work at South Side. I certainly don't mean to take up more of your time which is SO valuable. There really is no hard deadline to this request. I'm just eager to grow, like you are. Honesty from those who work and live alongside us is how we all grow best. I'm hoping because this evaluation is anonymous, you will feel free to be honest. Here is a START/STOP/KEEP document. If you would be willing to "make a copy", no one else will be able to read what you type (if you don't "make a copy" we'll all know what you think of my work for better or worse 😉. After you've typed in a few thoughts, please PRINT the page rather than sharing via email if you'd like to remain anonymous. Please fold the paper and place it in my box. I'm eager to read ideas and techniques we can employ to improve life for little and big people at South Side. If you're wondering "does this request pertain to me?" If you're reading this message, that means you're on the South Side team. If you're on the South Side team, your opinion of me is important. I SO appreciate the time if you are willing! Thank you!

Thankful Giving
For the month of November, our students will see a box next to our food garbage cans in the hallway at lunch time. Any packaged food items that they would otherwise throw in the garbage, we will place in the Thankful Giving Box. The contents of this box will be delivered to the Holland Rescue Mission, specifically the Women and Children's' campus on 15th Street, twice a week. Items that need to be refrigerated will be kept in our refrigerator safely. We will run this program just for the month of November. It's called "Thankful Giving". 

Marines' Letters

Dawn Mulder is an HC mom. Her son became a US Marine in April of this year. He and his fellow marines will not be home for the holidays and, for many, this is the first time to be absent for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Would EACH class, PK-2nd grade, be willing to make a Christmas card, drawing or write a letter to be given to a marine? Dawn suggested that the letters be addressed "Dear Marine"....and signed with the child's first name only and age, please. Dawn will come to pick up our letters on Friday of this week. If your class is able to participate, we'll need those cards/letters/pictures by Friday. If you just can't squeeze it in, we understand! Please don't stress. We'll have plenty to share! 

Father's Night
Thank you in advance to our wonderful preschool team who has been working overtime to prepare an exciting night this Tuesday for our preschoolers and a parent. We will host Father's Night this Tuesday at South Side and at Rose Park. Thank you for all of your ideas, preparation and hours. This will be a fun night to see our littlest ones flying around the building proudly showing Dad a slice of their life at school (they're always moving from station to station very quickly, loudly and proudly with Pops in tow!)

Wellness Wednesday
This Wednesday is the first of the month! Let's dress comfortably and incorporate some healthy movement in a big Wednesday of learning!